A few pics of our regular feathered friends:-

We have a very active little vole family in one of our log piles, I spent a little time taking a few pics to show them in action:-

Many thanks to the students from Newcastle and Northumbria University who visited on Wednesday 27th November and helped us with bird boxes.

Eleven students arrived to help construct 25 bird box kits and also to clean out the current boxes we have on site. On a very wet day we achieved most of what we wanted to do, thanks to the group who were out and about cleaning boxes with me, as they got particularly soggy!

Time to give a shout out to Barratt Homes and STP Construction, both firms have been very helpful allowing us to scavenge in there skips. STP are busy redeveloping Morpeth station and Barratts are building housing at the top of stobhill.

We have managed to acquire plywood panels, stone, wooden posts and fence panels, which will be used for our third hide and largest pond.

Many thanks for your help.

Unfortunately I found this little Great Spotted Woodpecker deceased under a tree, no sign of damage so I’m not sure why. Beautiful bird.

I spent an hour yesterday showing a guy from DEFRA around the site, he was doing a land mapping project. So eventually Clarks Bog will be immortalised in the Ordinance Survey Database!

The big winter project is underway, our largest pond will be a challenge but we have started. John and I have built a pallet roadway out where our island will be. The hide 3 area has been cleared by John and paths laid down to the pond side by Linda and Rob.

We have also been cutting a perimeter for the pond, so Thomas , Linda and myself have been in the thick of it cutting reed. As you can see from the pictures some of the reeds are well over 10 feet tall!

17 beavers were released into Clarks Bog last night which was a hectic start to the evening.

No it wasn’t the furry variety, it was 4th Morpeth Beaver scouts, who came for a visit and to do some work. The beavers are aged between 6-8 years old, so it proved impossible to keep the decibel level low, so not much wildlife sighted! I gave them a quick tour and then they helped to put down some replacement woodchip on one of our paths.

They seemed to have fun and there were no fatalities (always a plus!)

Thanks to my good lady for planting up my feeding ramp and looking after my flowerbed.

Having announced the arrival of our first red squirrel seen on site I had a couple of unwanted guests yesterday:-